


going home

by sevenfoxes



Series: when you wake [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: (kind of), Alternate Ending, F/M, Happy Ending, M/M, Multi, Time Travel, edge of tomorrow/all you need is kill fusion, time loops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-21
Updated: 2014-11-21
Packaged: 2018-02-26 10:45:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2649122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevenfoxes/pseuds/sevenfoxes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve doesn't look much different than he did nearly two decades ago. Bucky keeps telling him that the blond hair just hides the grey, but the truth is that he looks about the same age as Eleanore now. Steve is completely aware of it in a way his daughters are not; he will never be anything other than their father to them.  But he knows what it looks like to others.  He takes Eleanore out the night she gets her acceptance letter from Columbia Law and is horrified when the oblivious waiter asks him for his girlfriend’s order while Ellie is in the restroom. </p><p>-- </p><p>Steve raises his girls.</p>
            </blockquote>





	going home

**Author's Note:**

> A companion piece/alternate ending to [when you wake](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2525696). KIND OF. You could try to read this without reading _when you wake_ , but it probably won't make a ton of sense.
> 
> I'm not going to lie - I'm very hesitant to post this because I actually really like how [when you wake](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2525696) ends and I'm not keen to overwrite it. This isn't really an alternate ending because I really do see the original ending as the only real ending. But I know a few of you wanted to see something a bit happier, and I am kind of obsessed with Steve as a father (especially a father of daughters), so I wrote this out. It really doesn't fit with the tone of the other fic (AKA IT'S NOT ANGSTY)...
> 
> i-eat-men-like-air drew an amazing piece of Steve & his daughters [here](http://i-eat-men-like-air.tumblr.com/post/106117138604/youll-be-fine-raising-girls-is-easy-just).

“Dad?” he hears Linny call from the front door as her keys land with a crash on the small table near the coat rack.

“In the living room.” He flicks the channel; how is _Dog Cops_ still a thing?

Linny walks into the living room, tugging off her light wool cardigan and yanking her ponytail loose. Even without the heels she wears to work, she’s nearly six feet; Darcy was short, but both her daughters are tall and leggy ( _Amazons_ , as Tony once put it).

Steve doesn't look much different than he did nearly two decades ago. Bucky keeps telling him that the blond hair just hides the grey, but the truth is that he looks about the same age as Eleanore now. Steve is completely aware of it in a way his daughters are not; he will never be anything other than their father to them. But he knows what it looks like to others. He takes Eleanore out the night she gets her acceptance letter from Columbia Law and is horrified when the oblivious waiter asks him for his girlfriend’s order while Ellie is in the restroom.

Linny climbs onto the couch with him. She's back from Culver for the summer, working an internship with UNESCO at their office in midtown. She commutes every day; he know Tony made her an offer to stay with him in the tower, which would have been close enough to let her walk to work, but she came home instead. His daughters are the center of his universe, and the fact that Linny chose him is not lost on Steve; he is so tenderhearted for Linny, who is endlessly patient, kind, and thoughtful.

The last year has been hard on Steve, finally losing Linny to school and Eleanore to the world. Coming home to an empty house has been a painful adjustment for Steve; even with Bucky and Natasha constantly underfoot, it feels hollow without his girls. Tony offers to let him move back into the tower when Linny first leaves for college, but Steve turns him down. He wants to stay in the house. In part for his daughters - to give them a real home to come back to, not a tower with a target painted on its side - but also because he’s never felt as close to Darcy as he does when he’s in the home they made together.

Linny bites at her thumbnail and Steve taps her wrist, a light scolding. Linny has a terrible habit of biting her nails. “Ellie sent me a text,” she says. “She wants us to come over to the tower for dinner tonight.”

“She's back in New York? I thought she was still in Indonesia until the end of June,” Steve says, surprised. Usually he gets a call when she’s either coming home or close enough that Steve can fly out to see her. She's spent the last year traveling with her boyfriend - Ellie taking a long needed break before law school and Thomas putting off the inevitable familial inheritance. One promise broken to Darcy: he's never been able to keep Eleanore away from Tony's son. Good thing he was born with at least some of Pepper's common sense. Despite inheriting his father's brilliance and penchant for eccentricities, Thomas is a good kid who has always treated Eleanore with as much respect and love as Tony does Pepper.

“Dunno. I got an email from her a couple days ago, but she didn’t mention coming back early. You know Ellie, though.”

Steve smiles at the fond annoyance in his youngest’s voice, wrapping his arm around her shoulders. “Mmm. You could have just gone straight to the tower. It’s closer.”

“Wanted to come home first.” Linny yawns, cuddling into Steve's chest. Eleanore's always been the more independent of his girls, an echo of her mother. Linny, just as fiercely smart and opinionated as her sister, has always felt more like Steve's: the first to climb into his bed after a bad dream when she was young, the first to beg for hugs and cuddles, the one to let him dote and spoil. Eleanore, with her backbone of steel and stubborn pride, makes Steve indescribably proud. He looks at Eleanore and feels like a little bit of Darcy is still alive, still anchored to this world.

(The girls are the same with their aunt and uncle: Eleanore adores Natasha like a surrogate mother, while Linny is devoted to Bucky.)

“Good,” Steve says, brushing a kiss to his daughter’s temple.

 

\--

 

Steve walks into the wide expanse of Tony’s living room in the tower as Linny jogs ahead, tossing herself into Tony’s arms for a hug. Tony gives him a strange look as he passes by, something between nervousness and pity, and Steve doesn’t like it, not one little bit.

But then Steve feels his face break into a reflexive smile as he spots Eleanore chattering excitedly to Pepper, her hands gesturing wildly while Thomas stands beside her, his arm wrapped protectively around her hip. He hasn’t seen her since Christmas, and something inside of him relaxes at having both his children, safe and sound, in the same room again.

Suddenly, the light catches something on her hand, and Steve feels his entire chest seize up.

The ring is beautiful, but he expects no less from a Stark.

It’s been nearly a decade of dating, spattered with break-ups as Thomas waited faithfully while Eleanore figured out the woman she wanted to be. Steve know this shouldn’t be a surprise, that it isn’t a surprise. It feels like one all the same.

He spins his head to look at Tony.

“Don't even,” Tony says, holding up his palms in surrender, though he’s smiling a bit, like he can’t help himself. “Like that kid listens to me. Pepper couldn’t even talk him down, and that’s a first.”

Eleanore, finally catching sight of him, looks up at Steve, her eyes bright and face brilliant with love; she’s always been a happy girl, but he’s never seen her look like this. It makes him ache; he’s never wanted anything more than happiness for his children, for them to have the stability he never had and the love he managed to hang on to for a short time.

“Daddy?” She asks nervously, because while Eleanore has always been stubborn and proud, like her mother, the strength belies a deep vulnerability. He never takes Eleanore’s feelings for granted; while she’s not as demonstrative as Linny, he’s always known how much she craves his approval and love.

Steve pulls his daughter into a tight hug, and feels the anxious energy drain from her shoulders as she melts into him. “I’m so happy for you, sweetheart,” he murmurs into her ear. Her arms squeeze around him tightly, and Steve tries to remember this moment, basking in her joy.

Reluctantly, he lets go of her and steps back as Thomas moves once more to her side, his hand finding the curve of her elbow.

“Sorry, sir,” Thomas says with a trepidatious smile. He knows Tony’s son is intimidated by him, and while he’s always been kind and pushed Thomas to consider him someone he could come to, he’s also helped foster a healthy respect. Steve suffers no fools when it comes to his daughters. “I would have asked your permission, but I'm pretty sure she would have said no out of principle if I had.”

“Damn right,” Eleanore snorts, turning to rest her forehead on Thomas’s shoulder affectionately, and for a second, Steve swears he can hear Darcy laugh.

 

\--

 

“Night, uncle Bucky,” Linny says, ducking down to give Bucky a quick hug. She drapes herself over him, squeezing his shoulders tight, her pale skin a contrast against the harsh glint of his metal arm. It’s strange that Bucky only looks a few years older than Linny now when Steve remembers that same face looking at Linny while he held her clad in diapers eighteen years ago.

He wonders what it’s like for Linny, the three constants in her life other than her sister - her father, Bucky, and Natasha - unaffected by time. If it’s reassuring or frightening, if it will start to grow strange when she begins looking older than her father.

“Goodnight, Lins.” Bucky rubs her cheek with a finger and gives her a quick kiss on it before she ducks around the corner and takes the stairs two at a time.

When they hear the door of her room close with a loud thump, Bucky smiles at Steve and slides the rest of the way down the couch, his body cradled against Steve’s. They’re careful with their affection in front of the girls; Steve’s not ashamed of what he has with Bucky and Natasha, but their history is too complicated, not something he wanted to have to explain to his daughters when they were younger. Now, it just feels private. One day, they’ll know.

“So, Stark’s kid finally sealed the deal,” Bucky says, taking a sip of his beer. He lets his other hand fall to Steve’s thigh, thumb digging into the tense muscle. “Heard it was quite the ring.”

“Yeah,” Steve says, remembering the way Thomas had looked at Eleanore over dinner. He remembers looking that way at her mother once. “You should have seen her, Bucky. She was… glowing.”

“But?”

Steve laughs at his irrationality. There’s no part of him that’s bitter, not when his child is as happy as she is. “I don’t know. When the hell did she grow up?” He steals the beer bottle from Bucky’s hand, taking a hearty gulp. “She’s not mine anymore.”

Bucky quirks an eyebrow, the kind of look he always flashes when he’s getting ready to call Steve on his bullshit. “I’ve never seen a girl worship her father like Ellie. She’s just got a different way of showin’ it than Lins. It doesn’t matter what either of those girls wears on her finger - they will always be yours.”

Part of Steve wants to believe this, that no matter how old they get, how far they go, they'll always be his. It feels profoundly selfish, but Steve reminds himself that there's a difference between coveting their love and holding them back. He’d never hold them back, never hold on to them if it cost them an ounce of whatever they were due from the world.

He passes the beer back to Bucky and runs his hand through Bucky's hair. It's wet and a bit cold from the bottle, and Bucky shivers at the edge of nails against his scalp.

“You ever want kids?” Steve asks. They've never really talked about kids before beyond Steve’s. He’s seen the way Bucky is with the girls, the way he dotes on them unrepentantly. When they were younger, plenty of people thought they were Bucky's at first glance, especially when he had Ellie perched on his shoulders the way she always begged to be carried, her dark hair and light blue eyes a mirror of Bucky’s. Linny, with her blonde hair and fair complexion looked far more like Steve.

Bucky takes a deep breath. “I’d only ever want them with Nat,” he explains. The rest need not be said; Steve is well aware of the horrors visited upon the girls of the Red Room. Natasha will never bear children. “Besides, we have yours.” He smiles, and it’s bright, not sad or reserved at all. “We’ve only ever needed your girls, Steve.”

Bucky turns his face up as Steve leans down, his lips parting into the kiss. He tastes like the beer - cold and sharp - and Steve starts to get hard as Bucky bites down on his bottom lip, turning the kiss from sweet to obscene in ten seconds. A warm hand reaches around to hold Steve’s neck as Bucky presses his tongue into Steve’s mouth.

Steve hears Natasha pad into the living room, nudging at their legs until Bucky groans into the kiss, shifting his body until there’s enough room on the couch for her to sit down. He stretches back out, and Natasha throws her legs over his, reaching for the controller next to his lap.

“ _Dog Cops_ is on,” she says, and Steve and Bucky let out an aggravated sigh. “Well tough shit, I have the controller so I decide what we watch.”

She curls into herself like a pillbug, protecting the controller, when Bucky rolls over and tries to pin her, careful to not let her thighs wrap around his torso.

(Bucky keeps her wrists pinned while Steve peels off her pajama pants and goes down on her, enjoying the breathy, quiet moans she lets loose.)

 

\--

 

It’s nearly a year after Eleanore’s wedding when Steve realizes he hasn’t reset since the night before the rehearsal dinner, crashing his car on the icy road to Stark’s Vermont estate.

(Linny had been in the passenger seat, and there is nothing but grateful relief at not remembering much of anything other than swerving to avoid the young buck that had jumped in front of his headlights.)

It’s the longest Steve has ever gone without resetting.

He resets a few times a couple of months later, but they’re all shallow, barely jumping back more than a few weeks. For a while, Steve fears that he’ll never go back far enough again to return to Darcy.

The thought frightens him deeply.

 

\--

 

Linny meets a boy who ends up breaking her heart the year she returns from her posting in Madrid to take a policy position at the WHO in New York. Steve has to physically restrain Bucky to keep him from going after the kid when Linny comes home in tears with a suspicious bruise on one of her wrists, though rage makes Steve want to not only let Bucky loose, but join him.

(Natasha ducks out an upstairs window while Steve wrestles with Bucky down by the front door, breaking the vase that Jane had sent him for Christmas. Steve doesn’t ask, but Natasha assures him that the fucker’s alive. Barely.)

The next year, Linny meets the man she’s going to marry.

Francis Barton is a crack shot, just like his father.

 

\--

 

The year Darcy would have turned fifty-six, Eleanore has her twins. They’re born on a warm September night at New York-Presbyterian under a starry, quiet sky. They’re four weeks early, but healthy, and Steve thinks no one could be more relieved than him until he sees Tony’s face across the waiting room.

(There's a reason they only had one child; Pepper had nearly died giving birth to Thomas.)

Eleanore and Thomas name them Maria Jane and Darcy Anne Stark. Steve has always worried about the weight of borrowed names, but the look on Eleanore’s face when she introduces her daughters is so fierce that Steve can only smile.

Linny leans over to let the baby Ellie is holding grab onto her finger with a tiny hand as Francis crowds behind her, smiling. Linny’s niece fusses with the simple, elegant engagement ring on Linny’s finger before giving up, content to smack her lips and stare up at her family quietly.

“Now you can’t complain when I call you grandpa,” Tony says, handing him one of the swaddled babies.

“It’s not the accuracy, it’s the intent,” Steve grouses quietly as Tony laughs.

The baby lets out a whine before settling against Steve’s chest, blinking up at him with curious eyes. She looks just like Eleanore did as a baby.

“Darcy,” Thomas says beside Steve, looking over his shoulder, running a finger over the crown of dark hair on the baby’s head. It's mostly fluff, like spun cotton candy.

“What?”

“That one’s Darcy.” His smile is kind, full of awe, and Steve knows without a doubt that this boy will spend the rest of his life adoring Steve’s daughter, protecting his grandchildren, and Steve feels light for the first time in eons.

The baby hiccups another weak wail before closing her eyes, slipping into sleep.

 

\--

 

Outside the hospital, Steve doesn’t look to the left before stepping into the street.

 

\--

 

Steve wakes.

He knows where he is before he opens his eyes. She… she always smelled like this when they were dating. The light citrus scent of her body spray and the medicinal edge of the lab that she said made her feel like she smelled like a morgue attendant, though Steve never had a single complaint.

“Darcy,” he says, finally cracking his eyes open against the harsh morning light. They’re in her bed in Stark tower. He has no idea what day it is, what year it is, but finds that he does not care.

Darcy reaches down and brushes the hair from his eyes. It’s been forever since he’s touched her skin, and when he feels the warmth of it against his own, his entire body shivers with need.

It’s been so long. It’s been so _long_.

“Hi handsome,” Darcy says, leaning down for a kiss.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [(podfic) Going Home](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3941818) by [secondalto](https://archiveofourown.org/users/secondalto/pseuds/secondalto)




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